Quorum Saatchi & Saatchi Peru created a final exam whereby graduating students had to create a pre-roll video on YouTube, in order to promote KETÓ, a school of improvisation,

It was the ultimate test of their newly learned improvisation skills, as they had to get the attention of the most difficult audience – YouTube viewers. View the film on YouTube:

The students were judged on their ability to capture the audience and whether their clip was watched or ‘skipped’. If their video was entertaining and the audience did not press ‘skip ad’, they passed the exam.

As an extra value, for members of the audience that watched​ the video in entirety, they were offered a 10% discount to enrol in an improvisation course at the school.

The students were turned into ads, with the audience as the unbeknown examiners. As a second tier element the audience were then invited to convert through the discounted promotion.

Saatchi & Saatchi China Wins Top Awards for Creative Agency of the Year and Mumbrella Award for Culture

Saatchi & Saatchi China was the big winner at the 2015 Mumbrella Asia awards [LINK] presented on May 7 at the Sheraton Towers Singapore Hotel. The agency took home the title ‘Greater China Creative Agency of the Year’ and received the Mumbrella Asia Award for Culture. The Agency of the Year Award assesses agencies based on their national outputs, whereas the Award for Culture seeks to commend the most positive and high-achieving workplaces within the media and marketing industry.

Following aggressive growth in 2013, Saatchi & Saatchi China has maintained its top 3 ranking in the new business league, expanding its portfolio to include Sands China, Swire Properties, Walmart, Olay e-Commerce, PUMA Social, HSBC, Georgia Coffee, Choya and Wanda Properties. At the same time, Saatchi & Saatchi China turned its attention to the challenges posed by new media and the digital age.

In 2014, Saatchi & Saatchi China undertook a comprehensive, agency-wide transformation to embrace digitally integrated communications while adopting several inventive recruitment strategies, retention strategies and training policies. Being named Employer of the Year in China (Silver) and University Students’ Most Preferred Advertising Agency in China (Silver) is a testament to the agency’s innovation in recruitment and retention, its focus on staff development, insights into building a wider team culture, and delivery of high-performance outcomes.

The agency also successfully retained its title as China Advertising Creative Agency of the Year for the third consecutive year (2012, 2013 and 2014).

Apparently, Twitter paid somewhere between $87 million and $128 million to buy Periscope. This comes from a Seeking Alpha article on the subject. The investor insights website reports the following:

Twitter (TWTR+0.8%) paid a combined $57.7M in stock and $28.9M in cash up-front to buy live-streaming app Periscope and social media talent agency Niche, the company discloses in its Q1 10-Q. Another $38.2M worth of stock payments and $3M worth of assumed stock option grants are contingent on acquired employees staying with the company for up to 48 and 45 months, respectively. Read the full article on SeekingAlpha.com [LINK].

So far, so good for Periscope.tv, as lots of folks seem to like the live-streaming video site, much akin to the Meerkat app [LINK]. Can these sites continue to grow in monetization value for advertisers? More than likely, they seem to be the next-generation YouTube for the mobile platform. The future looks bright – and “television” continues to enter more and different Brave New Worlds….

• Core ads: Search and Display advertising
• Businesses demonstrating high consumer success: YouTube, Android/Play, and Chrome
• New businesses where we are investing to drive adoption and innovation: Social, Commerce, and Enterprise

Average CPC (cost per click) was down about 9%. Many are attributing this to an increase in mobile ad clicks & mobile usage [see Forbes, LINK]. Of course, in the longer-term, Google will likely be able to leverage CPC on mobile, as it simply allows for more powerful demographic targeting. And eventually, Google will likely figure out the even more important component of Psychographical Targeting.

‘The Advertising Book’ is a complete annual of all advertisers, agencies and marketing service companies in Thailand. It’s the marketing Yellow Pages for both agencies and clients alike. Whilst every other agency runs fancy advertising about how creative they are, Saatchi & Saatchi Thailand decided to demonstrate it. On the back page, they ran a simple but insightful question: “Need an excuse to fire your agency?”

Via a QR code, clients were invited to view ‘Goodbye My Agency’, a mobile site with tongue-in-cheek excuses in ready-to-send emails that clients could use to fire their agency. The site also lets clients call for a pitch against Saatchi & Saatchi, learn about Live Creativity – the agency’s real time social and content creation hub, or even invite the CEO for a coffee.

Saatchi & Saatchi ECD Nuntawat (Golf) Chaipornkaew said “Sometimes our industry is too serious, especially when it comes to promoting ourselves in front of clients. We have enjoyed firing all our competitors and we look forward to the 1,964,952 pitches we now have on this week.” CLICK FOR GOODBYEMYAGENCY.COM [LINK]…

Interesting how new fashion trends take root and grow. With social media & mobile devices paired up, today’s “hot looks” catch on from any number of sources. It’s really very difficult to create an ad campaign that can work marketing magic with such efficiency. Ideally, a marketing strategy will pair the worlds of traditional campaigning, with new media to form a multi-pronged attack plan. Seeing a celeb using a product on one’s smartphone can carry tremendous weight. And it’s certainly why the Celebrity Endorsement has grown to new heights, and marketers are more willing to sign famous folks to bigger & bigger deals [examples – LINK]….

…quick trips to the grocery store could drag on a little longer as shoppers search for cuts that won’t break the budgets. Patrons at one market in Lubbock seemed resigned to the high prices, but not happy.

“I quit buying steaks a while ago when the price went up,” said 59-year-old Lubbock resident Len Markham, who works at Texas Tech. She says she limits red meat purchases to hamburger, opting for chicken, pork and fish instead.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Hauling a truckload of logs to a Southern Oregon mill last fall, Chris Hill noticed a sheriff’s deputy behind him and flashed his lights to warn a UPS driver coming the other way.

The deputy pulled over Hill on U.S. Highway 140 in White City and handed him a $260 ticket for improperly using his headlights, saying another deputy had seen the flashing lights from behind the UPS truck and alerted him to stop the log truck because of the signaling.

Outraged, Hill decided to fight the ticket, and on Wednesday, a Jackson County Justice Court judge dismissed the citation, finding that motorists flashing their headlights amounts to speech protected by the Oregon Constitution.READ THE FULL STORY [LINK]

Showcasing emerging artists

Saatchi & Saatchi Australia has enlivened their flagship Sydney premises with three levels of painting, sculpture and photography, as part of a unique partnership with Australia’s oldest art school. The Saatchi & Saatchi Show brings together a diverse collection of works by thirteen National Art School graduates.

Michael Snelling, National Art School Director, said, “At the heart of our partnership with Saatchi & Saatchi is a shared vision to nurture creativity and give emerging artists exposure to a broader audience. We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Saatchi & Saatchi in 2014, and expect the student artwork will not only be a talking point in the office, but complement and extend the creativity generated by their staff on a daily basis.”

Saatchi & Saatchi lent their expertise to the School’s 2013 Graduate Exhibition, developing a ground breaking campaign that used Twitter and digital platforms to attract a record breaking 2,000 attendees and boosting artwork sales to the week-long exhibition.

In a city that is saturated with visual art events, Saatchi & Saatchi created a point of difference by capturing people’s reactions to the artwork with the tagline ‘How will you react’. This intriguing message was integrated across media, including television and radio commercials and 165 street flags in the CBD.

Michael Rebelo, Saatchi & Saatchi Australia CEO, said, “Saatchi & Saatchi and the National Art School have a great synergy: we both value artistic expression and are creatively brave. We are very excited to launch the Saatchi & Saatchi Show 2014 and to play a part in helping the School’s students realise their potential. I am sure the work will stimulate interest, interaction and debate by staff and clients alike.”

Luke Storrier, 2013 Bachelor of Fine Art graduate, said “I’m honoured to be part of this year’s Saatchi & Saatchi Show as it gives me the possibility of sharing my ideas with a broader audience.”

“My work Port in a Storm focuses on denatured materials; injecting flow and life back into those materials that have had the life sucked out of them. As a sculptor, material is everything and once you scratch the surface of possibility with a material it invites you to continue scratching.

The art will be on display and available for purchase at Saatchi & Saatchi’s office at the Rocks during 2014.